Behind the Headlines Podcast · WKNO/The Daily Memphian

1623: Shelby County Sheriff should not manage the jail, Harris says

·32 min·2 clips

Harris says ICE should be "relegated to border security" and calls its presence in Memphis troubling.

Eric Barnes opens the show with Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, joined by Daily Memphian reporter Bill Dries. The first major topic is the Youth Justice and Education Center, usually called YJAC. Harris says youth detention has long been managed in collaboration with the sheriff's operation. The conversation comes back again and again to who should manage the facility now. Harris describes the current setup as a crisis and says the county needs to do something different. The interview keeps circling the practical question of authority and responsibility. The discussion then shifts to the state and local response to the task force. Barnes asks whether Mayor Paul Young has handled the situation well. Harris does not try to grade him. Instead, he says there will be time to evaluate everyone when it is all over, if it is all over. Dries asks how much Shelby County knows through its own involvement. Harris says the county has lots of interaction but not much more information than the public gets. He says he wants the leaders of the operation and Governor Bill Lee to release more demographic information. Harris says the anecdotal accounts are troubling. He says reports from Latino employees and other observations have made the issue more concerning for him. He notes that the daily reports he has seen include mugshots. He says he has not seen a mugshot that is not Latino or African American, which he finds troubling and says warrants more investigation. The show also touches on the lawsuit against Bill Lee and the state over guard deployment, along with the budget and other county pressures. The conversation closes by returning to the jail question. Harris says he would support a change and says private management would be on the table. He adds that he has long opposed CoreCivic. He still says the system is in crisis and in free fall, which is why he thinks the county has to consider something else.

As heard by us

A Shelby County government conversation about detention, policing, and who should control what.

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris keeps the episode anchored on a local power question: who should run the Youth Justice and Education Center, and what happens if the county tries to move away from the current setup.

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Why you'd press play

For the Shelby County youth detention fight, with Lee Harris on the record.

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